Antibodies to SQE have had great interest in the popular press. Asa et al., described antibodies to SQE in the serum of sick Gulf War Veterans and purported that these antibodies were responsible for their disease [Asa, et al., “Antibodies to Squalene in Gulf War Syndrome,” Exp. Mol. Path. 68:55 (2000)]. Asa's assay has been criticized for technical reasons, which render the reported results as highly questionable or invalid [Alving, et al., Letter to the Editor. Exp. Mol. Path. 68:196 (2000)]. U.S. Pat. No. 6,214,566 (Asa, et al.) discloses an immunoassay for detecting anti-squalene antibodies.
In order to develop a highly reliable assay for antibodies to SQE, we developed murine monoclonal antibodies to SQE to serve as positive controls [Matyas, et al., “Induction and detection of antibodies to squalene,” J. Immunol. Meth. 245:1 (2000)]. These monoclonal were used to develop an assay for measuring antibodies to squalene in human serum.